Looking-glass world: learning to assemble the machinery of illusion - virtual reality

Science News, Jan 4, 1992 by Ivars Peterson

"What we really have so far are demonstratins," says Myron W. Krueger of Artificial Reality in Vernon, Conn. "The technology we are using is quite rudimentary."

Krueger, one of the founding fathers of virtual reality, pioneered a type of interactive medium in which a silhouette image of the user is combined with a computer-generated picture, which the user sees on a large projection screen. Video cameras monitor the person's movements and sent the information to a computer, which responds by shifting or changing the graphic images under its control. Unlike other forms of virtual reality, Krueger's scheme doesn't require the human participant to wear any special gear (SN: 6/22/85, p.396).

With other virtual-reality systems, "you're essentially putting on scuba gear," Krueger contends. "The technology is very intrusive."

But the most critical flaw in present-day systems, he adds, is the perceptible lag between an action and the system's response.

"We all have a long road to travel," IBM's Lewis told an audience at the Virtual Reality '91 conference, held in San Francisco last September. "But let's not get discouraged by the difficulties. Even though we're limited to easy problems at the moment, we can design our software to stay flexible and growable into the future."